I shook my head. “That’s what you said before. It’s later. Talk.”
“Admit it, Smoke. You were glad I left.”
“Not true.”
“Don’t lie.”
It was a struggle to keep my eyes open, but I was determined to have this conversation. “I’m not lying.”
She tried to get up, but this time, I put my arm around her waist. It hurt like hell when I did, but I couldn’t let her leave. I was too afraid I’d never see her again.
“Not lying,” I repeated.
“I heard you.”
She heard me? “What are you talking about?”
She let out a heavy sigh. “Talking to Decker.”
“When?”
“Before I left.”
It was getting as hard to talk as it was to keep my eyes open.
“Go to sleep, Smoke.” When she ran her fingers through my hair, I couldn’t fight it any longer.
It took me a minute to figure out where I was when I opened my eyes and light was streaming in through the bedroom window.
My body was stiff from sleeping in the same position all night, and my neck ached when I tried to turn it when I heard the door open.
“You’re awake,” said Siren’s uncle who really wasn’t her uncle. What the hell was his name? I couldn’t remember.
“Where’s Siren?”
“Siren? You mean Siobhan? She’s just in the other room, on the phone.”
I nodded and closed my eyes. “I need the bathroom.”
“Let me get some help.”
He rushed off before I could stop him. I shifted my body until I was close to the edge of the bed, bent my waist, and tried to sit up.
“Hang on, let me help you.”
“Hughes? What are you doing here?”
“I drove down to Kinsale last night. Took me a fecking long time to locate the two of you.”
I had a lot of questions, to most of which I didn’t really care what the answers were. “Listen, Hughes, I gotta take a piss.” He helped me up from the bed and held my arm. “I can walk, dammit.”
“The ogre is finally awake,” I heard Siren say from down the hall as I closed the bathroom door behind me.
When I came out, I didn’t see Hughes, but Siren was standing across the hallway.
“How are you feeling?” she asked at the same time she handed me a pill and a glass of water.
“Like a burning building fell on top of me. How about you? I had to have hurt you when I landed on top of you.”
“Come on,” she said, taking my arm and leading me back into the bedroom.
“Siren? You didn’t answer me.”
“I’m fine, Smoke. A little sore is all.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry for saving my life, you eejit.” She gently helped me back onto the bed and then walked around to lie next to me.
“Your uncle…what’s his name?”
“Gene O’Brien.”
“Right. He said you were on the phone.”
“I had a few calls to make.”
“Anything I need to know about?”
“I called to see how Jimmy Mallory was.”
“And?”
“It’s a miracle, but he’s alive.”
“He’s the shop owner.”
“The former shop. Not much left of it.”
“I can’t believe you went in there after him.”
“It’s what we’re trained to do, Smoke. I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.”
“There were firefighters there. Why didn’t you tell them to go in.”
She shrugged. “I just reacted.”
“I could’ve lost you. I’d—”
“Smoke. Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t act like this is more than it is.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I know we were never what I thought we were. Not before, and not now.”
I wanted to argue with her, tell her I wanted us to be more, wanted us to be together, but she was right. The reasons we’d never be a good fit hadn’t changed.
“I have a house in Dublin. It’s a shorter drive than from Kinsale to here. Do you think you’d be up for it?”
“Siren, you don’t have to—”
She sat up and turned her back to me. “When you’re able to travel, you can go wherever you’d like. Just allow me to help you like you helped me. Could you please just do that?”
“Yes.”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “Good.”
Since Hughes’ car was quite a bit bigger than Siren’s, I rode with him and, this time, agreed to stretching out in the back seat. There was really no way to strap me in, so Siren insisted we stop so she could buy pillows to stuff around me. Had I known that’s why we were stopping or what her intentions were, I wouldn’t have allowed it. On the other hand, this was Siren I was talking about. It wasn’t like I’d ever had much say about what she did or didn’t do.
“She drives like a damn bat out of hell,” muttered Hughes.
“You got that right. A blind one at that.”
He laughed.
“Smoke, you know it isn’t going to be possible for me to keep Siren’s condition a secret forever.”
I shifted so I was sitting up. “What do you mean?”
“The head injury.”
“The doctors in Asheville said there was no medical reason for her amnesia. Now that her memory is back, I don’t see what the issue is.”
“Her memory isn’t back.”
“Of course it is.”
He shook his head. “That’s why she’s on leave—not that I told Byrne that.”
“But that’s why she left the States and returned to Ireland.” Wasn’t it? I vaguely remembered her saying something about overhearing me before I fell into a pain-medicine-induced deep sleep.
“It looks like you,” I said when Hughes helped me inside Siren’s house when she arrived a few minutes after we did.
“What’s that mean?”
I stepped closer to her. “Warm, loving, never argumentative, stubborn, or belligerent.”
“Very funny,” she muttered.
“How did we arrive before you?” asked Hughes. “You were flying ahead of us.”
“I had to stop.” She held up what looked like a burner phone.
“Right. This brute crushed yours.” Hughes pointed his thumb at me.
“He was saving my life,” Siren mumbled. “You need to sit before you fall,” she said to me. “Or would you prefer to lie down?”
She was close enough that I could grasp her arm. I pulled her closer and leaned in. “If you’ll be in bed next to me, I’d much
